Google has announced that it is bidding farewell to the WebKit rendering engine which was installed in the Chromium open source browser project. Instead of Chrome, Chromium will now use Blink based on WebKit, which will be supported and updated by Google.
Adam Barth, a Software Engineer working on the Chromium project stated that Chromium used a different multi-process architecture than other WebKit-based browsers. He also said that supporting multiple architectures over the years had led to increasing complexity for both the WebKit and Chromium projects, slowing down the collective pace of innovation.
Barth further said that while the introduction of a new rendering engine can have significant implications for the web, Google felt that having multiple rendering engines, similar to having multiple browsers, will spur innovation and over time improve the health of the entire open web ecosystem.
The Blink team will focus on internal architectural improvements and a simplification of the codebase. As the engine matures, it would continue to move away from WebKit and web developers will need to test their work separately for browsers powered by Blink.
